Tribune Staff Writer

TOWNSEND — Pulled from a furnace, molten crystal emerges glowing on the end of Jim Gundersen’s blowpipe.

He rolls the glob through green and purple chips of glass and returns it to the 2,800-degree heat of the furnace behind the showroom at Goose Bay Handblown Glass. The colored bits are twisted and heated into a desired pattern.

“It’s a matter of getting a gather of glass out of the furnace, deciding what colors you want to put on it,” he says. “You add the colors, mix them around and try to make a bubble out of it.”

After blowing into the pipe to form the glass into a ball, Jim shapes the piece, rolls the pipe and pinches the end with huge pliers. He calls to wife Terry, who steps away from the counter of their shop. While an audience of four Bozeman-bound visitors watches, she puts on mitts and holds the ball while Jim adds a drop of glass, which he then shapes into a hanger with tweezers.

“It’s possible to do it by yourself, but it’s a one-armed-paper-hanger kind of deal,” he says.

The ornament is cured in an oven over night, and then ready to hang in the window.

He’d seen glassblowing as a child, and the art stayed in the back of his mind. The Gundersens found a Washington hot shop offering lessons and signed up.

“We took it from there,” Jim says.

“It’s physically easier than blacksmithing, but this is more challenging from the art standpoint,” he adds. “I would categorize horseshoeing and blacksmithing more craft with a bit of art, and glass is more art with a bit of craft.”

Jim put his blacksmithing skills to work building the equipment for their own shop, which began in 2002 at their home in Goose Bay, a small community along Canyon Ferry Lake.

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“We had a patio out back, and we added a roof and walls and built the equipment,” he says. “That’s where the business started. We made our worst mistakes in the privacy of our home.”

However, they soon found people wanted to see the glass being blown, something the small shop couldn’t accommodate.

“We looked around for a place in town,” Jim says. “We just stumbled onto the perfect location. It was a happy accident.”

Now a quaint, trim yellow facade faces the highway, but the shop was once “the worst-looking building in town.”

A two-month renovation remade the shop. Without its prime location, Jim wonders if the business would have folded its first year. Instead, a steady stream of visitors come to see the glassware take shape and take home pieces.

“Lots of people love to come in and kill a few minutes,” Jim says. “We have schools bring classrooms of kids, and clubs come, with the Red Hat Ladies as regulars. Hutterites stop and bring us a little something and sit around watching. It’s a social kind of place.”

The Gundersens weighed setting up shop in Helena.

“We had to decide if we wanted to be in a more populated area for the bigger customer base but be swallowed by the town or move here and stand out,” Jim says. “Townsend has been incredibly supportive of this little business.”

He sees Townsend evolving into a more diverse town, with a growing retiree population.

“Things are slower here, and it’s easier to get around,” he says. “That’s what we love. It’s relaxed. There’s a real nice feel about this place.”

The shop is becoming a destination in its own right.

“I don’t know how word gets out, but suddenly you find out someone came from Billings on a Sunday drive to see the glass shop,” he says.